BRUSSELS: Just as the European Union was announcing plans to spend billions of euros to contain climate change, massive clouds gathered over Germany and nearby nations to unleash an unprecedented storm that left death and destruction in its wake.
Scientists can’t yet say for sure whether climate change caused the flooding, but they insist that it certainly exacerbates the extreme weather that has been on show from the western US and Canada to Siberia to Europe’s Rhine region. For Diederik Samsom, the European Commission's Cabinet chief behind this week's massive proposals to spend billions and force industry into drastic reforms to help cut the bloc's emissions of the gases that cause global warming by 55 per cent this decade, this week's disaster was a cautionary tale.“People are washed away in Germany ... and Belgium and the Netherlands, too.
A man rows a boat down a residential street after flooding in Angleur, Province of Liege, Belgium, Friday July 16, 2021. Severe flooding in Germany and Belgium has turned streams and streets into raging torrents that have swept away cars and caused houses to collapse.